Problems in doing remote desktop

Question

I have two laptops (one running on XP professional (32 bit) and other Win 7 Home premium (64 bit)) which are connecting to same wireless network. I am trying to do the remote desktop from one machine to other (tried from both the machines). Although I am able ping the machine, remote desktop says it can't connect to the machine specified. I am doing mstsc and giving the ipaddress in the connection details. I have also enabled 'Allow Remote Assistance Connections to this computer' in both the machines. Any idea what could be the problem?

EDIT VNC worked. Remote desktop still not working though. I am getting the following error:

Answer 1

Windows 7 Home Premium does not accept incoming Remote Desktop connections.

You can use Remote Desktop to initiate a connection from any edition of Windows 7.

You can connect to computers running Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, or Windows 7 Enterprise.

You can't use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to computers running Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, or Windows 7 Home Premium.

You can connect to the Windows XP Professional machine from Windows 7 Home Premium. Best thing that you can do is check the firewall settings and your AV. Disable both and see if it goes through.

You can also use TeamViewer as it works across firewalls and any AV programs that you might be using.

Even if you have enabled Remote Assistance, it is a different program than Remote Desktop.

Source: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Remote-Desktop-Connection-frequently-asked-questions

Answer 2

Firstly remote desktop server feature is not available on home editions. So if you are trying to rdp to windows 7 home, it obviously won't work. However rdp from your win7 machine to the xp pro should work. Check if you have configured the remote settings properly. remote assistance and remote desktop are different.

source: https://www.technlg.net/windows/remote-desktop-terminal-services-how-to/

Answer 3

Any idea what could be the problem?

Firewall, or you don't have CredSSP configured correctly on the XP machine.

Answer 4

taspeotis is right. 9 out of 10 times, it's a firewall problem, esp that piece of trash called Zone Alarm. As a test, disable the firewalls on both laptops and repeat the connection procedure.

I'm not too keen on Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance, even though it's fun to find out why they don't work. Try VNC. Install the Viewer on your Win7 and the Server on your XP and set a password. I haven't done it in a while, but I feeding in the addresses 192.168.1.x should be fine, if not, you'll need the port numbers.

Once you get the remote software running, then re-enable your firewall to do more testing or inserting a rule for the software. If all fails, you can use Skype's Share Desktop Screen feature, it ain't remote desktop though!